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Budget Restraints Wavering in D.C.?

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President Obama signs the budget control act in 2011.

According to Stephen Moore, “Congress and the White House are quietly negotiating a deal for the new fiscal year that would bust the spending caps that have brought down the deficit.”

But as Mr. Moore points out, “The mystery is why Republicans are so ready to throw away their best fiscal weapon against Mr. Obama and the Democrats. These caps on discretionary spending were established under the Budget Control Act of 2011, the compromise that ended that summer’s standoff over the debt ceiling. The BCA is enforced by sequestration: automatic, across-the-board cuts that go into effect if spending exceeds the caps.”

Recently Rep. Mark Sanford (R., S.C.) told Mr. Moore: “This is our fiscal equivalent of the Battle of the Bulge. If we Republicans can’t hold the line on spending—by simply holding Obama to the caps he himself signed into law—everything else around here is an exercise in futility.”

“Busting the spending caps will only reverse progress toward a balanced budget, fatten liberal social programs, and confirm what many tea-party voters have been shouting for years: that Republicans break their promises once elected,” writes Mr. Moore. Read Moore here.

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Debbie Young

Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over three decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, driving her Porsche Boxter S through Vermont and Maine, and practicing yoga.